Recomedations for a lappy.....

[Bob_the_lost]

For £700 you can get a fairly shiny one. Customising dells is a minefield, they rip you off horrifically on stuff like RAM etc. It's nearly always better to find a laptop that exactly matches your specifications.

I'd still go for a desktop if he wants to play games, £700 will get you a very nice desktop with a bigger screen, more hard drive, better graphics card and faster CPU. For work purposes there's no real difference (excluding the screen) but for gaming...

 

[kalidarkone]

For £700 you can get a fairly shiny one. Customising dells is a minefield, they rip you off horrifically on stuff like RAM etc. It's nearly always better to find a laptop that exactly matches your specifications.

I'd still go for a desktop if he wants to play games, £700 will get you a very nice desktop with a bigger screen, more hard drive, better graphics card and faster CPU. For work purposes there's no real difference (excluding the screen) but for gaming...

Yeah know what you are saying about the desk top but the point of the laptop is so he can have it at his dads and at mine.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

True. In which case i'd be looking at the Dell Inspiron 1520, it's £600 but if you go for a slightly better graphics card the 8600M GT for £50 then you'll have a pretty decent laptop. It only has a single Gig of RAM, but to upgrade that with Dell costs £94 or you can buy 2GB for £60 elsewhere.

Total: 700 and a damn nice laptop, more than capable of gaming.

 

[ChrisFilter]

Yeah, I have an Inspiron 1720... beefed up a bit, but essentially the same machine. Runs new games very well indeed.